Viewing Criminal Law & Crime Category (18) found:

Samuel Eaton, a minister, farmer, newspaper editor and state representative in Rochester, wrote vignettes of five murders committed in Olmsted County between 1865 and 1880. For each, he describes the events preceding the crime, the apprehension of suspects, their court appearances, and sentences. ...

Vigilantes, popularly thought to be a phenomenon of the far western frontier, were active in several communities Minnesota and other states in the Midwest in the nineteenth century, long after the frontier had passed. Vigilance committees emerged to combat acts of lawlessness that could not be cont...

The first trial in Becker County, Minnesota, was held about November, 1871. Harvey Jones was prosecuted for domestic assault. He was tried before a jury, which found him guilty. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail. As Jones was being transported to jail, he received some shrewd legal a...

In 1885 the Board of Corrections and Charities submitted its First Biennial Report to the Legislature. It was compiled and written by Hastings Hornell Hart, the secretary of the Board. After his appointment in 1883, Hart inspected each of Minnesota's 55 jails and even toured public facilities in oth...

In 1891, the State Board of Corrections and Charities published its Fourth Biennial Report to the Legislature, covering the years 1888-1890. As usual, it included a report from its meticulous, reform-minded secretary, Hastings Hornell Hart, on the conditions of each jail he had inspected during thi...

In April 1893, the state legislature passed a law that transformed control and management of the county jail, an important segment of the criminal justice system. Because the elected county board was frequently reluctant to use public funds for necessary repairs and upkeep of the jail, the reform a...

Until 1868, a defendant in a criminal trial in Minnesota could not testify in his own defense. Like other states, Minnesota adhered to the common law rule that barred a criminal defendant from testifying because he had an "interest" in the outcome of the trial. The parallel common law prohibition ...

Big Stone County was established by the legislature on February 20, 1862. In 1981, Magdalene R. Sparrow published a history of the county. She included a short chapter on lawyers who had practiced in the county, several of whom practiced more than a half-century. She also related several anecdotes ...

In mid-August 1931, a gangland-style murder was committed on a two-lane road south of Red Wing, Minnesota. The victim was Harry Morris, a career bank robber, well known to police in St. Paul and Minneapolis. The killer was never apprehended, though he almost certainly was James Allen Camden, a bootl...

In January 1903, "McClure's Magazine" carried an exposé by Lincoln Steffens, a young journalist, of the corrupt reign of Minneapolis Mayor Albert Alonzo ("Doc") Ames. Steffens described how theft, gambling and prostitution flourished during the Ames administration in 1901-2. In a scoop, he publishe...

On February 16, 1877, Kate Noonan shot and killed William Sidle outside the Nicollet House in Minneapolis. She was tried in June, but the jury deadlocked. When the judge dismissed the jury, Noonan was in her cell. Her attorneys sought to free her via a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that her...

Shortly after Paulson, a Scandinavian immigrant, disappeared after a night of drinking "frontier whisky" at a log inn in Douglas County, the wife of the innkeeper located the body in a small lake and collected a reward of $500. One of Paulson's compatriots was tried for his murder but acquitted. Ye...

Several murders committed in Watonwan County from 1872 to 1916 are described in this chapter from a joint history of Watonwan and Cottonwood Counties published in 1916. About two-thirds of the chapter is an excerpt from a first person narrative of the Northfield Bank robbery in 1876 by Cole Younger...

The first trial in Birch Cooley Township in Renville County was held in 1868 in the small house of Willard Drury, Justice of the Peace. John Tracy was prosecuted for cruelty to his neighbor's cattle when they strayed over the property line onto his land. He was tried before a conscientio...